I work as a receptionist at a law firm. The partners are talking about expanding and adding staff, especially paralegals. They’re planning on doing this over a few years. The pay for a paralegal is much higher than what they pay for reception work, and I think the job is much more interesting, too. I’ve worked at this firm for several years; my boss and I have a good working relationship, so I asked her whether there was any chance the partners would let me work for the firm as a paralegal instead of a receptionist. She was a bit surprised, but after she thought about it, she was very enthusiastic.
She knows I’m a single mother without another source of income, so she helped me look up an online university where people can get an online paralegal degree. She said the school has a good reputation and offers many other online courses. She’s also going to ask the partners if they would be willing to help out with my tuition, if I agree to keep working for them afterwards, which is only fair. The university also has a financial aid program, so I’m feeling pretty optimistic about doing this the more I think about it.
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Thousands of students enter culinary arts institutes each new school year. Do they all have the same motivation for deciding to pursue an education in the culinary arts? Of course not.
Here are some of the many reasons that a student might attend a culinary institute:
- Absolute passion for cooking anything and everything.
- Generally creative and interested in a career that will allow that creativity to flourish.
- Good business sense and interested in starting a business like a restaurant from the ground up.
- Has had a long-time career in the restaurant industry and is interested in taking that to the next level by going to school for cooking.
- Interest in a specific niche aspect of the industry like learning how to bake. This could lead to jobs in the wedding industry or other related fields where cooking is needed.
- Not sure what else to do and cooking school sounded like a good idea.
These are a few of the things that might have happened in someone’s life or gone through someone’s mind and ended in the result of getting an application to go to culinary school.
If you were going to go to culinary school, what would be the reason that you wanted to go?!
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People who enter creative careers often find that the creativity only lasts so long before the job becomes "just a job". It doesn’t matter how much you like to paint or sculpt - you can’t do it day in and day out for money and not eventually experience some sort of stagnation in your work. When this happens, you might want to think about going back to school - not because you need the degree but because the experience of learning something new can be the jumpstart that you need to revitalize your creative self. This is particularly true if you head into a new creative field that compliments what you are already doing.
A writer, for example, may opt to look into a culinary arts program in CA such as the one that is available through the Culinary Academy of California. The experience of learning about cooking and about how to be creative with cooking while still making a career out of the art can be just what the writer needs to be inspired in her own work. She may get fresh ideas about how to market the writing that she loves to produce so that she can do her craft in a refreshed way. Or she might decide that she wants to be a professional chef! Either way, she takes the jolt of change and uses it to her professional and creative advantage.
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Most people think of vocational degrees as something that you get because you desire to work full-time in a trade that interests you. However, that’s not always the case for a vocational student. Some students choose to go through a vocational school program in order to be able to do lucrative part-time work while they pursue other careers that may not be so lucrative.
A student may opt to take a computer programming class at Briarcliffe College in NY because then it will be fairly easy to get a well-paying job in computer programming. Rather than doing this work full-time, the student may work part-time as a computer programmer while trying to get work as an actor in the musical theatre world of New York.
It is not easy to break into a career like theatre acting. Even those people who do manage to get jobs in the theatre usually don’t make a whole lot of money while doing this. Many of them wait tables or hold temp jobs in order to be able to pay their bills while pursuing their art. But the student who chooses to get a vocational degree is someone who can make decent money at a skilled job without investing too much time or money into the education required to be able to get that more lucrative job.
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Now that you have made the decision to explore online bachelors degree programs, you will need to apply for the program to get your education started. Just like most colleges, community colleges and universities, you will need to qualify for the program before you can get in. Usually, this is a fairly easy process. Some schools to require that you do more than others, but it is never more than a traditional school.
One of the things you may need to do is to get your ACT or SAT testing complete. This will be important in just about any school that you attend. Once you have those tests complete and have your scores in hand, apply to the schools. You may need to qualify for the program you are hoping to take, too. For example, if you want to be in a bachelor degree psychology program you may need to be admitted into the program through prior course work and studies. For most programs, though, you will simply need to choose the program and enroll. Having a high school diploma or the equivalent may also be important.
For those who are not ready for a bachelor program, consider instead an online associates degree program, which is a lower level degree that can easily be added onto to make it a more complete bachelors degree. In any case, your goal is to find the type of education that is right for you and to apply to the school offering it. The process is the same as applying to any other college.
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